Absent Father Quotes

“The answer to the question ‘How many children do you have?’ and the one to the question ‘How many children are you raising?’ are not identical in all cases: some men are not taking care of their own children, some are knowingly or unknowingly raising other men’s children, and some do not even know that they each have a child, another child, or other children.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The healing for women is not to be found in the quicksand of blame. The attitude of blame might lock us forever into the roles of passive prisoners, victims who have not assumed responsibility for our own lives.”
― Linda Schierse Leonard, The Wounded Woman: Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship

“There would be fewer absent fathers, if straight men were turned on only by women with whom they would not mind having children.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“For not taking care of his own child, a man can, with reason, argue that he made, not the child, but love.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Whatever the case may be, if the father is not there for his daughter in a committed and responsible way, encouraging the development of her intellectual, professional, and spiritual side and valuing the uniqueness of her femininity, there results an injury to the daughter’s feminine spirit.”
― Linda Schierse Leonard, The Wounded Woman: Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship

“The father-daughter wound is not only an event happening in the lives of individual women. It is a condition of our culture as well.² Whenever there is a patriarchal authoritarian attitude which devalues the feminine by reducing it to a number of roles or qualities which come, not from woman’s own experience, but from an abstract view of her—there one finds the collective father overpowering the daughter, not allowing her to grow creatively from her own essence.”
― Linda Schierse Leonard, The Wounded Woman: Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship

“The few times we do spend together stick out since they don't happen that often. Like when Dad was able to come to my eighth birthday party at the public swimming pool - the first birthday party of mine he'd been to in a few years due to his work schedule. He gave me a birthday card, which he had never done before. He spelled my name wrong on the envelope.”
― Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died

“For many of these women, the root of their injury stems from a damaged relation with the father. They may have been wounded by a bad relation to their personal father, or wounded by the patriarchal society which itself functions like a poor father, culturally devaluing the worth of women.”
― Linda Schierse Leonard, The Wounded Woman: Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship

“I am sorry that I was never there for you, you know? Weak men can become fathers too.”
― Noah Van Sciver, The Lizard Laughed

“How can a father yearn for bonds so tight, Yet vanish when his son needs him the most? The weight of absence lingers in the night, A haunting ache, a love that feels like ghost. More than twice this year, death's shadow looms near, yet deeper still, a wound that haunts the soul. Your absence leaves a void, a heavy ache. Though I forgive, the weight of loss remains, A shadow cast by dreams that slipped away. It fails to see the void that haunts my soul. Perhaps it’s time to gaze upon this plight,

Yet I must share, I cannot stand by you. Not evermore.”
― Jonathan Harnisch